


we are half-sick of shadows

by Tyleet



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Memory Modification, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-14 00:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes is dead, you remind yourself daily.  By the hour. Whenever you forget, which is often. </p><p>(A Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century AU. Or something like that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are half-sick of shadows

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking about Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century the other day, and decided to rewatch it (I watched it as a kid, but all I remembered about it was liking it.) And so I watched a couple episodes, and I loved the premise like CRAZY, but found myself not really loving the execution. But I couldn't get the premise out of my head. Therefore, this is--not quite a Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century AU, since I'm not paying terribly much mind to the rules of that world, or to those characterizations. An alternate reality, populated by a different Holmes and a different Watson? It's the same basic premise, but twisted a bit to the side. No disrespect at all meant towards Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century fans--I'm just mucking about trying to find something that works for me. Um. The "science" here is all total nonsense.
> 
> Extra warnings for nonconsensual body/mind tampering, sort-of major character death (in the sense that the story is about clones in the distant future), and for mind control. 
> 
> Feedback of all kinds is adored.

_“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”_  
  
 _- **Excerpt from Dr. J. H. Watson's journals**_  
 **Property of the Department of History and Entertainment (c) Jan 2144**  
  
  
*  
  
You wake suddenly, sucking in air as though you have never tasted it before. As soon as you open your eyes, heart pounding in your chest, you understand you have been kidnapped.  
  
You are lying on a flat cot, dressed in a thin blue shift, in an entirely white room. The only thing present in the room with you is a strange glass and metal contraption, filled with a clear liquid that runs through a series of small tubes to--oh. To your left wrist, where what you are suddenly sure is a needle is trapped beneath your skin. You fight off a shiver of horror and continue to catalogue your surroundings. You have been in worse situations than this. The more you know, the more you will be able to think up a plan of escape.    
  
The room has no windows or doors, so far as you can ascertain while remaining still. You know this is impossible, of course--there is a door somewhere, but you will not find it unless you search the walls by hand, and letting your kidnappers know you have regained consciousness would be the height of foolishness.  
  
"We know you're awake, Mr. Holmes," a smooth female voice says from nowhere. No, it cannot be nowhere, you remind yourself fiercely, you simply do not have all the information required. There could be a hidden vent--a masked gramophone piping sound in from elsewhere--some illusion meant to trick you into doubting your own senses.  
  
"You're not going mad," the voice says, infuriatingly calm. "You're just very far from home."  
  
"Because you've removed me from it," you reply, and are startled at the sound of your own voice--hoarse and rasping, as though you have not spoken aloud in a very long time. "Rest assured there shall be people looking for me."  
  
"That's not quite true," the voice tells you. "I'd like to tell you everything you need to know, if you'll allow it."    
  
You not hesitate; you know there must be a catch, but it is not in your nature to turn down information when offered. Even false information can tell you volumes about the truth. "I will."  
  
"Excellent. Remain still, please."  
  
Without warning, your cot begins to move beneath you, the frame itself actually changing shape, and only the woman's warning keeps you from hurling yourself away from it out of sheer self preservation. But you do remain still, so still that you can hear the faint mechanical whirr as the bed stiffens in its new shape, now very nearly a chaise. "Very impressive," you manage, mouth dry. "I suppose you're familiar with the work of--" and then you are forced to abandon the rest of your sentence, because the wall before you has come to life.  
  
Where before had stood a smooth, unmarked, white wall, now stands the image of a woman. But only an image, you realize faintly, because she clearly exists in only two dimensions, although she looks realer than any photograph you thought had been perfected. You can see the rise and fall of her chest. She _breathes_ and _blinks_.  
  
"Hello," she says, and it is the same voice as before. "My name is Ilona Tan. I work for the New London Department of History and Entertainment. And I am very pleased to welcome you to the 22nd century."  
  
*  
  
Miss Tan's presentation begins with a sentence that you recognize with a dull shock.  
  
 _Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth._  
  
The truth is likely that you have gone entirely mad at last. Perhaps dosed yet again with a strange and potent hallucinogenic, perhaps overdosed at last on morphine, and these are the fevered imaginings of a brilliant mind turning on itself.  
  
"You haven't gone mad," Miss Tan repeats, patiently. "Could even you have imagined this?" She shows you the atom dividing, again and again, heedless of the pit of horror and disbelief it opens up in your core. Images flit behind Miss Bell on the screen--the mushroom shaped cloud, the men-shaped shadows on the sides of buildings, a poisoned seagull still alive, one of its wings burnt cleanly down to bone. She is right. You do not believe you could have imagined this. You do not believe anyone could have imagined this.  
  
Eventually she explains why you are in her possession.  
  
The year is 2209, and New London--which you gather occupies roughly the same territory as your London, with some rather significant additions--New London has developed a Living History programme. You have been restored to life thanks to the curiousity of this programme. Because you--the real you--died over two hundred years ago. You don't remember dying.  
  
"Of course not," Miss Tan says. "You died of old age. We wouldn't bring an old man to the future just as his body was permanently failing. That would be quite cruel. You are exactly as old as you feel." Thirty-eight, then.  
  
You understand immediately that your age is not meant as a kindness, but as a way of protecting an investment. Although she is not so tasteless as to say so, you are certain that an unfathomable amount of money has been spent resurrecting the relics of the past. You are also certain that those fortunate enough to have been selected by the programme are expected to perform various services for their new society, in return for their rebirth. You do not bother asking her if anyone has refused.  
  
"How was it done?" you ask impatiently.  
  
"it's a very complicated process," she tells you. "And frankly, at this point it's probably far beyond even your powers of understanding. We will tell you, but you need to learn more, first."  
  
"Then tell me," you snap, and take a deep breath. You do not have enough data. Any conclusions drawn now will be hasty, and probably wrong.    
  
"You will be required to consume a daily primer socializing you to the 22nd century," she continues. "It should cover basic issues you may find disorienting, including our increased technology, the cultural shift in gender norms, and our current political situation."  
  
"And your science?" you ask, because she must know what it is you want.  
  
She smiles, briefly. The first shred of actual emotion she's shown so far. "And science."  
  
She leaves you, then, but the images keep coming.  
  
You watch. You learn.  
  
*  
  
Over the next two weeks, you learn these things about your captivity:  
  
Miss Tan does not, so far, appear to have lied.  Life, you suppose, is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.  
  
Your body has been reconstructed from your own corpse--although not, as you first horrifyingly assumed, your actual body reanimated. Your former body is still resting in a crypt in Highgate Cemetery. Your current body--which feels exactly like the old one, down to the knife scar on your neck and the birthmark on your left ankle--has been reconstructed from tiny pieces of the first, with perfect accuracy. With what they tell you is perfect accuracy, you correct yourself.  
  
You have learned that you are no longer to be trusted.  
  
Your memories have been reconstructed. This is unfathomable, but you are left no choice but to believe it. The procedure is inconceivably complex. You gather that it was accomplished by feeding information from your private journals, published papers, surviving photographs, and raw historical data into an intricate algorithm designed to construct personalities for mechanical servants. Mechanical men. Fiction dreamed of this. You cannot help but wish it never had.  
  
Inevitably, you must conclude that your memories may not all be true, or be true at all. Although the moving pictures assure you that this unavoidable uncertainty is mediated by the fact that your personality is being modulated by your own unique physical brain, the same matter and mix of chemicals as the original, you are all too aware of being constructed. The doctors and scientists who appear on your wall inform you, with gleaming smiles, that you are the most perfect restoration mankind will ever be able to achieve.  
  
You run your fingers over the familiar planes of your face, and it is all exactly as you remember. You tell yourself that this does not matter. You are not Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Sherlock Holmes is dead, you remind yourself daily.  By the hour. Whenever you forget, which is often.  
  
*  
  
Eventually they let you out of the small white room.  
  
The first being you meet in the flesh is not a being at all. You have had ample time to familiarize yourself with compudroid anatomy, but it is still a shock to see one in person. If you didn't know better, you might assume that a man standing in a strange, seamless suit of armor were standing before you. But you do know better, although your fingers itch to take the thing apart, to understand how it works in practice as well as theory.  
  
"Mr. Holmes," the machine says in a strange, inhuman voice, its single red eye blinking. "I have been instructed to show you the facilities, and introduce you to the Director."  
  
"What precisely is it that you run on?" you ask it. The machine does not answer. "It cannot be gas, or coal. You have no obvious engine--unless it's in there?" Your hand darts out before you have a chance to think about it and taps the thing's glowing eye. It is cool to the touch. "Impossible. Electricity? I cannot fathom how it could it self-sustain this long." You reach out again, and the machine catches your hand. It is not like being touched by a human. At least so far as you know. You might have a lifetime of memories of warm, firm handshakes, a surgeon's grip on your wrist an all-too-common response to your constant urge to touch things that do not belong to you--but for all you truly _know_ , every human caress feels like this. Cold, metallic, unyielding. You are given a distinct impression of strength, although the thing's grip is careful.  
  
"My power source is a solar battery," it tells you finally, releasing your hand. "If you will follow me, Mr. Holmes?"  
  
"Of course," you murmur, although you still want to know more. They have harnessed the power of the _sun_. You want to know _everything_.  
  
To your surprise, the corridors of this place are exactly what you would expect. Dark wooden floors, carefully paneled walls, familiar glass lamps, although the light that emanates from them is different, and you smell neither gas nor kerosene.  
  
"I could swear that this was taken straight out of my sitting room," you say when you pass a deeply familiar grandfather clock. You wonder briefly if you remember this clock because it was used as a template for nineteenth century time-keeping.  
  
"It is not surprising," the machine says. It sounds almost amused. "It is a replica of a piece from the Sherlock Holmes Museum."  
  
"Ah," you say, and pretend that this alone does not fill you with rage. "Of course." This is a place for replicas, after all.  
  
"We are in the Victorian Wing," the machine continues. "Everything you see has been painstakingly recreated to adhere as best as is possible to nineteenth century norms."  
  
"A Victorian wing," you repeat, "A Renaissance Wing, a Medieval Wing--what more than that?"  
  
"Impressive guesses," it tells you. "And quite right."  
  
"The world cannot have changed so much if I am deemed important enough for resurrection," you say with a sneer that you cannot quite suppress. "Possessing such technology, I imagine the first thing the fools and artists of my day would do is raid Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on-Avon."  
  
"It was not the first thing," the machine says. "The ninth and the seventeenth, respectively. But still--well done." It pauses before a set of ornate double doors. "Are you ready?"  
  
"Yes," you say, briefly unsettled that the machine is asking after your emotional state. "Yes, of course."  
  
It nods, then opens the doors, and ushers you inside.  
  
"Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" A very tall, very thin man steps forward, beaming. "It is an honor--an indescribable honor to meet you, sir." He extends one large, spindly hand, and you shake it automatically. Warm, giving. Flesh as you remember it.  
  
"The Director, I presume?" you ask, gently detaching yourself. Miss Tan is standing behind a large wooden desk, a polite smile on her face. You nod at her, and she nods back.  
  
The man beams, flushed red with pleasure. "Yes! Of course! I'm Director Aaron Gogol--no relation, aha--and I am so, so pleased to welcome you to the future."  
  
"Charmed," you say dryly. You can already tell the man is a fool. Normally you wouldn't give him a second thought, past the obvious, but you have been starved for humanity, and your mind is going double-time: graying hair, curling slightly, green eyes--unusually brilliant--some new technology?--probably late fifties, happily married judging by the state of his ring, unusually affluent--you assume--you haven't had a chance to examine sartorial norms yet, you could be wrong, you could be wrong about _everything_ , but--  
  
"Mr. Holmes," Miss Tan says calmly. "Won't you have a seat?"  
  
You attempt to stop your mind from whirring like the machine you very nearly are, and sink into one of the red velvet chairs positioned in front of the desk. Miss Tan perches on the one beside you, holding what appears to be a square of glass in her lap, but what you have learned is a conduit for light and sound.  
  
Director Gogol edges around the desk, then leans across it, earnestly. He begins speaking--babbling, really--and even you can tell that it is mostly empty rhetoric. You focus on Miss Tan instead, radiating quiet competence beside you.  
  
"Your responsibilities as an installation of the Living History Programme are listed as follows," she says briskly when the Director has mostly finished, sliding her fingers over the glass square and drawing up a glowing list of duties. The list is very long.  
  
Apparently, you will be writing several autobiographies, conducting an endless array of interviews with journalists and historians alike, lecturing at universities, and attempt to solve high profile cold cases of the past two hundred years while being followed by photographers who will turn your cases into moving pictures. You smile and say yes to everything. You're waiting for the end.  
  
"You have been assigned a residence in the Department," she tells you. "Should you choose to seek residence elsewhere, you may petition the Department so that we can consider your request. I'll be your primary liaison with the Programme, which means that I will be available to you in case of any emergency or concern you might have. We've also assigned you a compudroid for more immediate and comprehensive service."  
  
"This compudroid, in fact," the Director says magnanimously, gesturing at the machine you had genuinely forgotten was still standing at the door. "Watson is one of our most reliable models."  
  
Your heart stops. You would swear it actually stops. You force yourself to continue breathing even though the hole in your chest has just been ripped wide open, and all the thoughts that you've been keeping away for the sake of your sanity come flooding in at once. You can't tell which is worse--that they would have done this to Watson, that they did not do this to Watson and you are here alone, that Watson is dead, that you have never met Watson and you have no reason to grieve, no reason.  
  
"It's just a classification," Miss Tan says, and you hear her voice as if from very far away. "It doesn't mean what you think."  
  
You restrain yourself from telling her that she has no idea what you're thinking--no possible _idea_ \--because it is very likely untrue. For all you know, Miss Tan helped design you.  
  
"I am at your service," the machine says.  
  
Breathe in, breathe out. You are not Sherlock Holmes, that thing is not John Watson, but you must continue breathing, at least.  
  
You must.


End file.
